The monumental dissolve. Reflections on the legacy of public monuments and the fragility of place.

MYTHIC ACRYLIC.

One of the most positive things that came out of “Monument counter Monument,” the exhibition that Carmelo Baglivo curated on my work for the Galleria Embrice in Rome last March, just about a year ago, was the resulting post-mortem debate on the concept of monumentality.

While my research has mainly been focused on understanding the intersection between art and architecture, the evident dissolution of the monumental as a failed condition implies few alternative realities. The monument can still exist in some sort of hybrid formulation, but by now it is largely inconsequential as far as it acts as an affirmation of place in space.

While historically the monument has been cast as a stable object existing in some kind of allegorical or symbolic realm, it really ends up in these times as a parasitical entity whose permanence remains mostly illusory.

I now return to this subject with some altered objectives, so that I can reconsider some of the implications that had been previously left unresolved. For the moment, my approach to monumentality is through the artist’s palette, working across mixed media-- acrylic, paper collage, pastiche, and mixed messages-- to see what I can reawaken in this most moribund subject of the monument. What you will find on display in this collection on my website ArtFolios is the abandonment of logical outcomes and instead a tentative rapprochement with the fringes of public conscious.

Looking forward to hearing back from you. Some of these works, both as originals and as reproductions will be made available for private purchase for the first time.